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Tuesday, May 19, 2020

All About Eve

All About Eve

I received a writing from an art friend.  I think it was Elsa who sent me this one.  It says:
I wanted to send you something special but how in the world do you send a PRAIRIE?

Isn’t that perfect?  Yes, how do you send a prairie?  I glued this bit into my junk journal and it sat for weeks.  Yesterday I collaged not knowing where it would lead.  I was not focusing on the words.  I auditioned pieces and finally decided on the main focal point.  She needed some background and so I continued auditioning.  Like a puzzle the background formed and then I committed.  I love that the second woman behind is there but she is in the background.  The collage needed a bit of red.  It needed a large letter.  Add a bit of graphite writing and white transfer paper asemic writing.  There you have it.  My narrative was now ready for me to discover.  As quick as the piece was almost finished I thought about the film All About Eve.  There is my story.  Maybe the bit of writing is dialogue from a play.  Maybe it is a discussion between the two women.  It might be a piece of writing found by the actress and taped to her dressing room mirror.  It could have come from anywhere.

3 comments:

jacki long said...

Compelling. I always study it enlarges a bit,
then a word comes to me.
Crazy about the negative border.

Elsa of Lake Forest Park said...

Yes, that was part of a card I sent you. The wonderful story there is that my sister sent me a hand-typed sheet of this sentence ending in a question mark. Typed over and over, many mistakes and clearly an old typewriter. I thought “ A PRAIRIE”...would be a good answer. This hand typed sheet was inside a packet of stationery that my sister bought at a downtown 5 & 10 in a small town in Michigan. Someone must have bought the stationery and inserted this sheet of typed phrases and then returned it. A mystery.
She sent it to me as a gift for collages. This collage is a strong image and then I imagine both women receiving a praise in the mail!
Thank s for carrying it into another place and time!

julia said...

Wonderful to hear the story of the evolution, john!